Chris Blair
Forum Replies Created
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Thanks guys! Appreciate the help. But naturally, since you’ve helped me figure out how to do it…the client now wants a traditional menu!
But hey, I learned something new! Thanks again.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Brent,
You had mentioned on the phone that your web people couldn’t get the x264 file to play in their flash player. I believe they need to actually put the x264 file on a web server and have the web page’s flash player call the file from it. There’s a security feature in Flash that won’t allow videos to play in the flash player from the hard driver.
There are workarounds to this (which escape me at the moment), but we always test our video files from the web server anyway while building a page so we can see how it will load and stream (or pseudo stream if it’s a progressive download).
Tell your web guys to try that (if they didn’t already). I’ll check your compressed file on Monday, but it will probably be late in the day because I have an all day video shoot.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Jason Myres: Set-up is dead simple. Just give each machine a fixed IP on the same subnet, and away you go.
This is what I love about ethernet based video storage. Of course, you have to have servers and arrays that have proven able to handle the latency issues that video/audio present, but other than that, it’s SOOO much easier to implement than SAN solutions.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
How about we just describe it as “shared storage” and call it a day?
As the capabilities of NAS increases (with wider use and affordability of 10GB ethernet), the theoretical and practical speed differences (or advantages) of SAN over NAS are getting much narrower.
NAS is arguably easier to implement, cheaper, and easier to administer compared to SAN…and as the link points out, the lines are blurring quite quickly between the two technologies.
It seems I’ve come across several articles lately about IT engineers trying to combine the best of the two protocols and technologies to come up with a new standard for shared media production.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Nope…not missing anything. A technical writer for Apple has a web page that lists all the various sizes and recommended sizes…although some of the logic is a bit odd on what the page recommends.
https://homepage.mac.com/qt4web/compressforiphone.html
For instance, the screen size of the device is 480×320 and Apple recommends:
“…a size of 480×360 for standard 4:3 aspect images, because that’s the smallest 4:3 image that’s at least 480 pixels wide. By the same reasoning, a 16:9 widescreen image should be 586×320, because that’s the smallest 16:9 image that’s at least 320 pixels tall.”
This doesn’t make sense for either aspect ratio in all the tests we’ve done (which are substantial). 4:3 video actually seems to work just as well compressed to just 320×240. We saw no discernable quality difference in outputting to the recommended size above…only much bigger file sizes and slower load and startup when accessing video from web sites. Plus, if you use the size above, you’ll lose 20 pixels at the top and bottom of your image when the video is at full size (when you tap the device screen to size it up and down).
For 16×9, 480×272 actually seems to work just as well and again, there’s virtually no discernable quality difference when you watch the video. Using Apple’s 16:9 recommended size will result in losing losing 53 pixels on each side when the video is at full size.
Don’t get me wrong, Apple’s sizes work fine and look very good, but my point is you can save a crapload of space and have your files startup and play much more quickly from a website by doing them a little smaller. The iPhone and iPod both do an amazing job of enlarging the videos to fill the screen.
Of course, purists out there will compress their videos at 640×480 just because both devices can play it. But it’s just a waste of file space and it definitely won’t play very quickly or well from a website at that size on the iPhone.
The link above also has a paragraph that reads as follows…(and this is what we’ve based our sizes on):
…a 4:3 video shows at 427×320 in landscape orientation, and at 320×240 in portrait orientation. A 16:9 video shows at 480×270 in landscape orientation, and at 320×180 in portrait orientation. One of the dimensions is always 480 or 320. The other may be smaller.
In zoomed video mode, the image is expanded to fill the screen in landscape orientation. Images are displayed at 480×320, and cropped as needed. A 4:3 video shows as 480×320, cropped top and bottom, and a 16:9 video shows as 480×320, cropped left and right.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Mark Suszko : I’d say a likely range is between 18 and 65 for an in-house guy.
18K? No offense but that’s $8.65 an hour! McDonald’s pays employees with a couple years experience more than that. I would think an experienced (and decent) Final Cut editor would get at least $30,000 even in the smallest of markets…unless you’re talking about local TV affiliates, which are notorious for their crappy pay. But even a local affiliate couldn’t find experienced editors for 18K. A recent college graduate? Maybe, but even then, it would be pretty tough to live on $18,000 a year almost anywhere in this country.
That said, I agree the scale would vary wildly by market, by the type of production entity (TV stations, Production Houses, In-house corporate marketing, web-based production etc.). A really good editor (regardless of the type of editing system they use) could command close to six figures in a big market. If you can edit on Final Cut, you shouldn’t limit your search to Final Cut based jobs. Editing is a craft in my opinion, not a technical skill (although you certainly need to be proficient technically). But if you can master Final Cut, you can certainly master Media Composer, or Premiere CS4, or Edius or Vegas or any other editing platform out there.
As for the salary surveys available, over the years I’ve found those to be unrealistically high and they often give people impractical expectations. Not to mention that if you heed the numbers, you could price yourself out of a lot of jobs by using them for your salary demands.
Plus, salary shouldn’t be the only criteria to judge what’s available out there (which is likely “not much”). Work environment, flexibility, opportunity to learn from someone with lots of experience and talent, the quality of the equipment and facility and other factors should also be a huge part of the “compensation” package evaluation.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Yup..we have 3 VelocityQ systems running strong and an older Velocity system. The VelocityQ’s give us 4 real-time video channels, 4 real-time DVE effects and 6 real-time graphics. We almost never have to render anything in a timeline. Of course they’re all still SD, but we only do a few HD projects a year and we do those on our Blackmagic HD Extreme based system, either in Premiere CS3, After Effects (if it’s heavily composited) or Sony Vegas.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Maybe Jacob isn’t on Final Cut? We’ve played out really long 60-90 minute timelines on our system (VelocityQ) on a GB NAS based system without issue.
Could this be a Mac/Final Cut related issue and not a SAN/NAS specific one?
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
I think Bob’s point is that a lot of people come to the forum with proposed solutions in mind and are often just looking for validation of their choices. I’m not saying that’s what you were doing, but in the original post you said a couple of things that are BIG red flags when it comes to doing this:
1. Buying SAN storage arrays from companies that don’t really do shared VIDEO storage (except as an aside).
2. Your IT people were going to supervise the purchase and install (or something to that effect).Having done the exact same kind of research myself about 2 years ago, I know firsthand how confusing and contradictory a lot of the information is on the web. I initially decided our purchase of a shared storage solution could be on of those “I can build it and save” projects.
But after talking to people on here, and talking extensively with several companies (most of whom sell turnkey solutions like EditShare, Apace, Tiger Technology, Studio Network Solutions and others), I came to the realization that we needed a PROVEN solution. Meaning one that was already out there in the field working for facilities with similar demands as ours.
Is it more expensive up front to buy a NAS or SAN from a company that specializes in shared video storage? Yep. Is it worth it? DARN STRAIGHT. I cannot imagine if I had built a system and it didn’t perform as we needed. I would’ve still spent several thousand dollars, and would’ve spent dozens of hours of time installing and configuring the thing, only to have a system that didn’t work…and worse, with NO-ONE to turn to for a solution.
Bob’s point is simple. Buy a system that is proven. Don’t buy something based on what a sales rep or engineer or marketing guy says…because when it comes to shared video storage, it probably won’t work and they won’t have a solution for you to make it work.
Hope that helps.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
John Baumchen: Then our IT dept decided that they could help us out, (the boss, a non video type, loves the idea), and I’m not so sure they’re up to speed on the requirements for a SAN to handle video.
I can guarantee you they aren’t up to speed on it! IT people do not understand the demands that video places on a shared storage system.
If you’re editing at the data rates Arnie reported, you could even consider a NAS based system for 4 edit stations instead of a SAN. Of course a SAN will give you MUCH higher data rates and room for growth, but if you’re on a budget, Apace and EditShare both make NAS based systems that can handle mutliple streams of Apple ProRes or DVCProHD material.
We own an Apace vStor and I can verify it does EXACTLY what they claim in terms of performance, real-time streams and data rate benchmarks.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com